STEC Qianjiang Channel and Connection Project Being Honored FIDIC 2016 Engineering Excellence Award

2016-10-26

Recently, the 2016 Annual Conference of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC, Fédération lnternationale Des lngénieurs Conseils) was held in the ancient city of Marrakech, Morocco, with hundreds of representatives from over 100 countries attending the conference. At the conference, the Qianjiang Channel and Connection Project invested and constructed by STEC was honored FIDIC 2016 Engineering Excelence Award!

FIDIC is a well-known international consulting engineer organization, which was established in 1913 on the basis of consulting engineer federations of three European countries and currently houses 106 members. FIDIC terms published by the organization are now being widely applied in the construction process of international engineering projects. Due to the authority of FIDIC in the global engineering consulting business, its award has also been reputed as the “Nobel Prize” of the industry. In 2013, on the 100^th Anniversary of Estabalishment, FIDIC appraised and selected the “2013 FIDIC Centenary Awards” for the first time. Ever since then, the awards have been given every year in order to honor the engineering projects that have made outstanding contributions towards global economy and people`s living standards.

Qianjiang Channel and Connection Project is subject to a major general contracting project of STEC in the form of BOT with the investment of approximately 4 billion yuan. It is the masterpiece of a Shanghai enterprise in terms of promoting economic development in Zhejiang and participating in the construction in the Yangtze River Delta by means of capital and technology output. The newly-built main traffic axis that traversing the grand Jiangdong New City of Hangzhou has effectively connected Hangzhou, Xiaoshan, Shaoxing and Shanghai, and significantly shortened the distance among three cities on both sides of Qiantang River, which has great importance for promoting regional communications and common prosperity.

Forward-looking consulting and planning: “Bridge-Transforms-Into-A-Tunnel” saves world-famous landscape

Qiantang River has been world-famous for its tidal waves with great momentum. For being close to the tide-watch scenic spot of Yanguan town on the north coast, Qianjiang Tunnel and Connection Project, by considering to protect the natural wonder of Qiantang River tide and relevant safety, STEC has proposed when participating prophase planning and consulting to transform the initially-drafted river-spanning bridge construction plan at the Qiantang River section that serving as the control works and key works of the Qianjiang Tunnel and Connection Project into the underwater tunnel construction plan with greater difficulties, which has effectively avoided possible influences of the bridge on sightseeing of Qiantang River tide.

Conquer a worldwide problem: maximum diameter shield construction

Qianjiang tunnel is the first large-scale underwater tunnel in Qiantang River Basin, which is regarded to be the twin tunnel with the Yangtze River tunnel in Shanghai. The tunnel has a 4.45-kilometer-long six-lane dual carriageway that has also been constructed by applying the shield techniques with an external diameter of 15.43 meters. It is one of the tunnels with the largest diameter in the world that have been constructed through shield method.

Above the tunnel, there is the Qiantang River with surging waves; below the tunnel, there is a super-large shield steadily laying under the ground. Project construction has been facing various world-level difficulties, such as the tidal bore of the Qiantang River, salinity change of the water, ecological environmental protection etc. STEC has successively organized and conquered various major technical difficulties, including the transportation of shield machine and other large components, super-deep and super-large foundation pit construction in the water-rich area, shield excavation face stabilization under hydrodynamic pressure of the Qiantang River, multi-discipline grade-separated synchronous lean tunnel construction under short construction period, overall turning of shield with maximum diameter and so on.

Innovative science and technology: pioneer in tunnel construction at the bottom of Qiantang River

During Qianjiang tunnel construction, STEC has adopted the slurry balanced shield with the largest diameter in the world and information construction techniques, laid a large number of sensors vertically on the bank with penetration points in order to master the sedimentation conditions on a real-time basis, and successfully solved the world-level difficulty of constructing a super-large expressway underwater tunnel under the Qiantang River. Qianjiang tunnel has set a precedent for the tunnel construction in Qiantang River Basin; in addition, STEC has also used 3180 sets of LED lights inside the tunnel instead of the traditional fluorescent lights, which is capable of saving power of 2.47 million kilowatt-hour every year and has created the model for energy-saving lighting in long-distance domestic underwater tunnel.

“First stop” for the Going-Out of STEC`s conservation section

Qianjiang tunnel is also the “first stop” for the Going-Out of STEC`s conservation section from Shanghai. After being open to the public for two and a half years, the operation, maintenance, management and conservation work of municipal conservation in Qianjiang tunnel have been widely hailed; it has gradually completed the transformation towards the localized talent management model, set a precedent for the application of buffer anti-collision vehicle, mileage peg license plate and the like in the regional market, and strived for forging a comprehensive intelligent systematic brand project that covering operation and maintenance, conservation, detection and emergency handling.